Modern large square balers require lubrication of five rotating elements (hub, billhook, twine disk, twine disk pinion and wiper arm) of each knotter arrangement. A grease zerk or lubricating line is provided externally of the knotter frame for introducing lubricant to each of the joints defined between a given element and the knotter frame. In order to reduce the maintenance effort, it is known to provide a distributing valve to move lubrication to each of the joints through individual lubrication lines. This arrangement suffers from the disadvantage of requiring a multitude of lube lines some of which may become kinked as the knotter is rotated to a service position, and each lube line being associated with connections which may leak.
The problem to be solved then is that of providing a knotter lubrication system which overcomes the aforementioned drawbacks of the prior art systems.